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Workshop: Found Sound and Composed Improvisation

March 14, 2020 @ 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm

$35

Registrations are closed.

About the workshop

Musician Ben Miller offers a found sound and composed improvisation workshop using simple structures to organize creative events.

Exploring the innate talent of all those who attend will be the focus. Attendees can bring a musical instrument, an obscure soundmaking device, or voice. Miller will provide two small tape machines and a transistor radio for sound sources, too. Found sound is encouraged!

Regarding musical technique, we will use whatever we know. If you can sight read, great. If you are unable to read music, no problem. Whatever abilities we have as a large ensemble, we will utilize accordingly. If an attendee is more interested in dance or painting, rather than sound, please feel free to attend. We can incorporate more than one medium. Musicians, vocalists, non-musicians, dancers, painters, anyone is welcome!

In a group setting, attendees will utilize both chance operations and deliberate decision-making to create a composed improvisation. Chance operations include rolling dice, use of random numerical sequences, etc. The difference between composition and improvisation is both wide and closely knit. Composition is pre-organized ideas. Improvisation is executing, or arranging anything without previous preparation. Our composed improvisation will be recorded and sent to all attendees as an MP3. Attendees may videotape, if they wish.

About the Instructor

Ben Miller is an American rock and avant garde guitarist born and raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and now based in Detroit. He has formerly been a member of such Detroit/Ann Arbor bands as Sproton Layer, Destroy All Monsters, and non-fiction. Destroy All Monsters in particular, still a cult favorite, was a big part of the proto-punk, punk, and post-punk Detroit rock scene, featuring such bands as the MC5, the Stooges, Sonic’s Rendezvous Band, and Up. His current projects include the Sensorium Chamber Orchestra of Detroit and Porcelain Hammer.